A survey shows the Liberal election win may provide the biggest opportunity for Chinese investment
Chinese real estate investment is more likely to experience growth with the Liberal-National Coalition winning the election over the Labor Party, with the reduction of current rigid Chinese capital controls being, by far, the biggest opportunity to boost Chinese investment in Australian real estate.
This is according to a survey from Chinese property site Juwai.com, which showed that more than a third believed the coalition win will lead to more Chinese investment. Just over a third said a Labor win would have lead to somewhat less investment.
However, Juwai CEO and director Carrie Law said ahead of the election that over 42% of surveyed industry experts believed regardless of who won “there will be no impact on Chinese residential real estate investment”.
She added that in Juwai’s daily work with Chinese buyers the election has not been not an issue, citing the recent election in Thailand wherein, despite the period’s greater political tension and volatility, Chinese investors remained undaunted and “relied instead on the country’s reputation as a good long-term investment destination to inform their decisions”.
According to Law, Labor’s negative gearing policy was more likely to reduce Chinese investment than increase it. Among the respondents, 42.3% believed Chinese investment would remain about the same even under that policy, while 24.6% believed investment would decrease and 19.2% believed it would go up.
“The question everyone is asking themselves is, ‘What would help boost Chinese investment to higher levels?’ Well, most experts believe that the relaxation of Chinese capital controls is most likely to do so,” Law said.
“More than half of respondents believe that curtailing China’s capital controls provides the biggest opportunity to increase Chinese investment. Reducing foreign buyers’ taxes in the various Australian states and seeing the Australian home market return to price growth are the second most important factors, with each receiving the vote of 17.3% of respondents.”
